Various food containers, particularly cardboard pizza boxes, are known. Some examples of known pizza boxes are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,944,452 to Kent et al, U.S. Pat. No. 4,476,989 to Larsen, U.S. Pat. No. 4,960,238 to Lorenz, U.S. Design Pat. No. 292,176 to Kuerti, U.S. Design Pat. No. 274,889 tO Sullivan, U.S. Pat. No. 4,441,626 to Hall, U.S. Pat. No. 4,919,326 to Deiger and U.S. Pat. No. 4,237,171 to Laage et al. Other examples of paper formed boxes are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 1,667,975 to LaBombarde, U.S. Pat. No. 3,949,931 to Hall, U.S. Pat. No. 4,232,816 to Johnson et al, U.S. Pat. No. 1,149,891 to Billstein and U.S. Pat. No. 731,924 to Lowy.
The emphasis of all these patents is in the enclosing of a food or other product. There is no attention paid to the use of the packaging after being initially used.
However, it is becoming more and more important that all products that are recyclable, be recycled. A secondary use is thereby achieved by the manufacture of a new product made of recycled products.
It is presently a problem with known pizza boxes to provide a box that is easily collapsible and that occupies a minimum amount of space when collapsed. Due to the size of a formed pizza box, it is often difficult to dispose of the pizza box so that it is recycled for a secondary use. It is therefore customary to discard used pizza boxes without considering the possibility of recycling the pizza boxes due to the amount of space required to store a known pizza box.